


Game theory

by Petra



Category: Life on Mars (UK)
Genre: Bruises, Dominance and Submission, M/M, Masochism, Painplay, kink bingo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-07-27
Updated: 2010-07-27
Packaged: 2017-10-10 20:09:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,018
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/103791
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Petra/pseuds/Petra
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam doesn't have to say anything to give his consent like this, only stop fighting, or stop fighting Gene and fight himself for once.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Game theory

**Author's Note:**

> Masters/doms/slaves/subs for Kink Bingo, specifically D/s. Consensual painplay and power exchange. Thanks to [](http://thatyourefuse.dreamwidth.org/profile)[**thatyourefuse**](http://thatyourefuse.dreamwidth.org/) and [](http://d-generate-girl.dreamwidth.org/profile)[**d_generate_girl**](http://d-generate-girl.dreamwidth.org/) for prereading.
> 
> Sequel to [Nothing left to lose](http://archiveofourown.org/works/100518/), which is not required for comprehension.

Sam doesn't let himself believe in all this and let go--not as much as he knows he can, not as much as he wants to--until after one dreary Tuesday, when Gene reaches for him after a drink at his flat and he says, "God, no."

Gene scowls at him, looking surprised as if he doesn't get rejected by women all the time. "You sure about that, Gladys? You've been climbing my leg nightly for months now. How're you going to sleep without the Gene Genie?"

"Badly," Sam admits. "No, anyway. Not tonight." When he pushes Gene backward out the door with one finger on his chest, it works. Gene goes.

Sam closes the door after him and stares at it, the bare wood around its nearly useless catch from where it's been slammed open too many times, hardly believing he's alone in his flat. For the next half hour, he expects Gene to call his bluff and come charging in any second.

The television turns itself on five times that night, including three times after Sam's unplugged it.

He barely sleeps at all and drags himself into the station feeling like he'd call out sick if it wouldn't give Gene a thousand things to taunt him for. After three cups of tea, he can keep his eyes open for more than five seconds at a time, and he goes into Gene's office, fighting back a yawn. "What do you want?" Gene asks. "Other than a blanket and a nap?"

Sam can't quite look at him and say, "Sorry," so he looks at Gene's desk instead, with its habitual mess of papers, and says it that way.

"What've you done now?"

"More what I didn't do," Sam says, and covers his mouth to keep in another yawn.

Gene snorts and gets up to prod at him. There's a bruise on his left pectoral that is all Gene's fault, and the jolt of sensation is better than all the tea in the world, except for the incipient erection it provokes. "You look like shit warmed over." He lowers his voice. "Knew you wouldn't sleep, you poncey bastard. Missed me, did you?"

Sam rolls his eyes instead of saying "Yes." He doesn't mind giving in to Gene when it's just the two of them--hell, if he's honest with himself, he's practically begged the man to make Sam his bitch--but not he can't take the teasing, not like this. This is the part where they have to work together on equal footing. "Enough," he says instead, and catches Gene's wrist when Gene reaches out to poke him again. If he doesn't protect himself, he'll be begging for it right there, and that's more trouble than anyone's worth. No one in the station bats an eyelash at their brawling, but they'd have something to say if Gene bent Sam over his desk and pulled his trousers down. And that is the last time Sam will ever let himself think of that in public. "Tonight, all right?"

"Might be I have plans." Gene pulls his hand away. "Plenty of other fish in the sea."

"Right." Sam folds his arms and leans on Gene's desk. "You're a fast worker, to go out cruising at eleven and find someone who lasts more than a night at a go."

"Could be," Gene says, though Sam doesn't believe a word of it. "You know I've got 'em lining up."

Sam wonders exactly when Gene puffing out his chest and coming the big man went from laughable to endearing, and how hard he'd hit his head when that happened. "Then I won't expect you," he says, straightening up and turning to go.

It's a lie, as it's all been a lie, all the not-caring. He's expecting Gene to react, and react he does, catching Sam by the shoulder--by the bruise--and the wrist, pushing his arm up his back and holding him there. Sam goes up onto his toes to avoid the worst of it, but that just means Gene pushes harder. "Any time you tell me to go, I'll go," Gene says in his ear. "But you'd better mean it for good and all, next time."

Sam curses himself, his miswired misfiring brain, for the way he's gasping, half from the pain and half because it's all going right to his cock as sure as any loving caress ever has. "Didn't think you'd want to cuddle," he says, biting out the words.

"I can manage without a good shag one night a year." Gene pats him too hard on the shoulder and lets him go. "Better than I can manage with you slogging around like you lost your teddy bear."

Someday that will be an excellent joke, but not yet. Sam shakes his arm to get the circulation going again and steals one of the folders off Gene's desk, his heart pounding hard in his ears. The folder isn't sufficient cover, so instead of stalking out as he was going to, he sits on Gene's reeking, abused settee and opens it as if he has any idea what it contains. Sooner or later, his erection will subside, and the more he can focus on something else, the better. "Tonight, then," he says, when he can say it smoothly.

"Unless you've decided you're well quit of me, tonight," Gene agrees.

Sam isn't sure what he'll get from Gene after that, after they spend the day dealing with a few petty blags that might be leading up to something big. If any of their informants were coming up with useful data, that would help, but no one knows anything. Sam is far too used to that feeling.

They've gone to the pub and left separately, as they normally do. There's a rule there, only leaving together once a fortnight, and never on the same night twice a month, though Sam's not sure Gene knows that's a rule even though he keeps to it. The rules of undercover are coming in handy for a clandestine homosexual relationship. Sam's sure no one suspects anything much except his neighbors, and his neighbors are a crew of drug-using but not selling people scraping by with screaming babies, music at all hours, and a tendency to have rows at any time of the day or night about as loud as the shouting sex and knock-down fights Sam ends up in with Gene.

Though usually the knock-down fight comes before the sex, not after. It's better that way.

He's braced for a fight of some kind when there's a firm knock on his door at ten-o'clock, but when it doesn't burst off the hinges he worries for half a second that there's a problem and it's Ray or Chris coming to retrieve him to find out what's gone wrong with the Guv. "Yes?" Sam asks through the door.

"Don't be a tosser," Gene says, and Sam takes a long breath before he opens the door.

"You made it." Sam doesn't beam at him, though he wants to. He doesn't fall into Gene's arms in relief, he doesn't throw himself at Gene's neck, he doesn't do any number of things. He locks the door, keeping his hands steady.

Gene gives him a sidelong look. "I didn't forget the way after one night. I'm not that bloody drunk."

"I didn't think you were." Sam shrugs. "I thought you might've decided not to--"

Gene kisses him, which he never does unless they're fucking, fierce and pulling him into an embrace that's at least half an excuse to grab his arse and give it a good squeeze. "I said I would," he says, when he lets Sam's mouth go, though not his arse. "I don't walk out without some damn reason, unlike some women I could name."

Sam is tempted to say something in Annie's defense, except that wasn't addressed to her. She hadn't walked out like Gene's Nancy; Annie had never walked in, not really, to be able to walk out in any meaningful sense. Never got her hands on him, like Gene has now, and it might've been nice, might still be nice.

This isn't nice, Gene peeling him out of his trousers while he gets Gene's flies open, another hungry kiss that has them flush against each other. This is brilliant, and if Sam knew holding out on Gene for one night would get him in a mood to kiss instead of just screwing, he would've done it weeks ago, and never mind how many times he'd have had to wank or how much sleep he'd have missed. "Jesus," Sam says, losing half the word in a groan when Gene gets a hand on his shoulder and squeezes, right over a bruise he's had longer than any bruise would last without some careful damn maintenance.

"Not tonight. Tonight you've got me instead." Gene kisses him again until they're both breathing hard. He's controlling the speed, biting at Sam's mouth until he's shaking.

There was a time, back at the beginning, when Sam would've protested about that. When Sam would've said he should call a few of the shots, not give in to whatever the hell Gene wanted. But that was before it all clicked into place, when they were still falling-down drunk every time and Gene was playing as straight as anybody could while he had his cock in another man's mouth.

That wasn't fair, but that was all Sam thought he could get out of him, and it was close enough to enough that he could go with it, for a while. Until--until he woke up, if he woke up. Until something changed, whatever that was going to be.

He's still waiting for the fairies to come and take him home, and incidentally strangle the little girl with the clown to prove they're the good fairies. If there are bad fairies, she's got to be one of them.

But he's not waiting for the part where Gene decides an equitable relationship would be better than what they have. He's given up on that, as he's given up on understanding what the hell he's doing every day. He's been going with it--solve the crime, save the innocent, punish the guilty.

Let Gene put him where he wants him, fall to his knees, find that place in his head where all he has to do to be happy is whatever the hell Gene wants. It's not a hard place to find, when he gets right down to it. Maybe it should be--weren't you a DCI once, Tyler? Didn't you control your own damn destiny, once upon a time, or think you did?

Those are the old rules. These are the new ones, ones he's never negotiated. They go something like:

1\. Whatever Gene wants to do is going to be fun.

2\. Chances are improving that it'll be fun for Sam, too.

3\. It might also hurt.

4\. 3 doesn't preclude 2.

5\. For all the ludicrously horrible things Gene does in the course of his work, he's proven that no means no for him.

6\. What's to negotiate, then? "No" isn't a safe word; "no" is "no," and when Sam chooses not to say it, he's choosing whatever the hell happens after that.

7\. There have been all sorts of points where someone--someone saner, someone safer--might've said no already. But if Sam was sane, he would probably be dealing with the world differently. If he needed to worry about being safe, he'd have a whole new set of problems.

And when he applies those rules to his everyday--everynight--life, what he gets is Gene leaning against the wall next to his door, pushing him down, pressing his fingertips into the bruises on Sam's shoulders. Some of those bruises are familiar enough to be old friends. Old lovers, the way he's been living with them and appreciating them.

Sam could pull away from Gene and stand up any second now if he wanted to. All it would take would be a "No," short and simple.

If he wanted that, he'd have it.

As it is, he's burying his face in Gene's crotch, getting his pants down far enough to suck him--and when has the smell of him gone from awful-but-tolerable to wonderful? Sam hates the smell of fags, or he did, once. He doesn't care for the smell of sweat too long unwashed, except here, except like this, because this is what he wants no matter what it all smells like.

When he takes a deep enough breath, he can believe this is real. He can believe that this is where he belongs, right now, doing this, getting his lips around Gene's cock and making him react.

If someone's reacting to him, he's here. He's doing something to affect the world, even if it's just the part of the world that's shaped like Gene. And it's not all in his head--can't be--because Sam's never had this fantasy. Never had it before he got here, not heavy like the taste on his tongue.

Maybe, once or twice or ten times, he thought about having someone hold his head in place, move him, say, "Fuck, you're a whore for this," but that's the easy part.

Maybe he's had thoughts, in his day, about having a partner--if Gene's a partner, here--who doesn't mind hurting him, who likes it as much as he does, though usually those thoughts were about talking the whole damn thing out first, safewords and careful negotiation. There is no damn way to negotiate this, and the only way to get himself to the place where this is right is to put himself there himself.

He wants this, he needs this, and this is exactly what he deserves for all the things he's done, good, bad, and indifferent. He's nothing but this, right now, nothing but a body that needs to be used, a mouth to be fucked.

Sam tells himself to be there, to feel it, and it works, a few seconds at a time, then a few more, until he doesn't have to think about it because there's nothing else to think about but the way Gene's making him ache, shoving into Sam's throat and twisting his fingers into Sam's shoulders. No one ever did training about pressure points in 197bloody3, but Gene learned half of them the hard way and the other half because Sam's moved his hands to the right-wrong places, on occasion. It hurts so much--his arm's going numb.

"Oh, fuck," Sam says, and pulls away from him.

Gene scowls, then shakes his head, his eyes refocusing. "What?"

Sam shivers, shaking his arm, trying to work out whether that's permanent damage, if those are his nerves to start with. "Too much, that time," he says.

"Didn't think there was such a thing, with you." Gene reaches for him--offers him a hand up, steady as anything. "You all right?"

His fingers are bending normally and the tingling's dying down. "Yeah. Sorry." He takes Gene's hand and rolls to his feet, trying to feel like he hasn't lost his nerve.

Gene punches his shoulder--pulls the punch, almost entirely. "Don't let me break you, you idiot."

Sam rolls his eyes, though his hand's still hurting. "You're not going to."

"I damn well could, the way you carry on." Gene shoves him, two-handed, not an angry shove, but a "move your arse" sort of shove. "Get your kit off, let me see what I've done."

"Nothing. Nothing that'll show up, anyway." Sam winces as he says it, trying to imagine the havoc Gene could get up to during interrogations with a good working knowledge of inflicting pain, even without the classic standbys. Not that he needs the subtlety, or would appreciate the reasons for it if Sam tried to explain. He takes off his shirt anyway, because if they get much farther he'll want it off, along with the rest of his clothes.

And, if he's honest with himself, he takes it off because Gene told him to. He's never going to follow the man's real orders without questioning unless it's a life-or-death situation, but here and now, that's half the fun of things, even if he'll never say it that way to Gene.

"Then what in the hell was it?" Gene asks, slinging his coat over a chair and his shirt after it.

Sam tries to decide whether to explain, demonstrate, or let it go. There are enough technicolor marks around where Gene had his hands to pass the thing off as an oversensitive injury. "I said, nothing."

"Don't lie to me, Dorothy. You don't call things off over 'nothing.'" Gene kicks his trousers off to lie in a heap with his boots and sits on Sam's bed, which creaks as alarmingly as ever. "I've seen you carry on like a hundred-pound prozzie while you were bleeding. What, exactly, did I do, so that whatever it is, I can manage not to do it again? Believe me, sitting here with my cock hanging out because you're too unhappy to suck it is not how I planned on spending my evening."

"I'm not unhappy." Sam gets on his knees again--he never paid the security deposit on the place, though he wonders if maybe the landlord would let him off fixing the door if he promised to replace the carpet when he goes, if he goes--and reaches for Gene.

Gene groans. "God give me strength." He knocks Sam's hands away and catches him by the shoulders, almost entirely avoiding all the obvious bruises, which is a trick in and of itself. "Talk to me, or I will tell your pretty bird exactly how much of a poof you are, and you will be stuck with me until the end of your misbegotten days."

Sam blinks, derailed. "I'm hardly going to run off with Annie if I'm with you, am I?"

Gene shakes him, ungently. His teeth click together. "Answer the ruddy question, Tyler."

"Fine." Sam smacks his wrist. "I'll show you. Just let me go a moment."

"No running out the door in the raw."

The neighbors probably wouldn't notice, but Sam's not planning on it. "I won't."

Gene lets him go, but keeps his hands in position to grab Sam if he goes anywhere. "Talk. Now."

Sam holds up his hands in surrender. "I'll show you." He puts on his best hostage negotiation voice. "I'm moving to the bed now."

"I can see that, I'm not blind." Gene rolls his eyes.

"I didn't want you to worry, is all." Sam sits next to Gene, close enough that their thighs brush, and puts his hand on Gene's shoulder, exploring with his fingers.

"I've heard about this. One of those Eastern things, is it?" Gene tries to look at Sam's hand, but the angle's wrong however he cranes his neck.

"Kind of. Okay, this is going to be uncomfortable, so tell me when to stop." Sam finds a pressure point near the base of Gene's neck and digs his fingers into the knot of muscles.

"Fucking hell." Sam's expecting to be shoved away any second, but all Gene does is frown more deeply. "And you put up with this from me every damn night?"

Sam shrugs. He's not up to a long discussion of the difference between masochism and flat-out insanity, and he doesn't trust Gene to have any idea that there's a distinction to start with. If he admits to one thing, he'll be pegged as a nonce before they get three inches. "It relieves tension."

"I've seen that part." Gene glares at his hand. "Enough, enough already." When Sam lets him go, he shrugs that shoulder. "It feels damn strange, I'll give you that."

"Was that too much?" Sam asks, and knows as he says it that there is no way in hell Gene will give him a straight answer.

Gene sniffs. "I'm fine. Think I can't take it?"

Sam grins at him. "Of course you can. Just--" he glances down. "Don't think you like it as much as I do, that's all."

"If you are casting bloody aspersions after you left me hanging--"

"No." Sam shrugs. "I know, you're a hard man. You can take anything I can and come asking for more. But not begging for it, exactly."

Gene scowls as if he's sure there's an insult in there for him, rather than the one Sam's directing at himself. "And that's what I ended up doing, by mistake. No wonder you smacked me."

Sam looks away from him. The truth about that was that if he'd thought Gene had meant to, he probably could've taken it and more, but he was sure it had been a mistake, so it hadn't worked, quite. "It wasn't that bad," he says.

"No?" Gene wraps his hand round the back of Sam's neck and traces the line of his trapezius muscles, looking for the same pressure point Sam had shown him. "You've no tension to speak of, do you, Sammy?"

Sam closes his eyes. "That's--ouch, you found it, fine." He knows better than to expect Gene to let up, which is just as well, as he doesn't.

"Not slapping at me this time." Gene clucks his tongue. "What, am I doing it wrong?"

"No," Sam says, and takes a deep enough breath that he can make that a sentence, second time through. "You're doing it right. Mostly."

"Only mostly?" Gene shifts his fingers slightly and presses harder.

Sam bites his lip and doesn't fight him. He's asking for this, he knows it, he's been asking for it all along. It's what he deserves, not because it hurts--not just because it hurts--but because this is what happens when he's got Gene focused on him: pain, suffering, one hell of a hard-on. "Can't talk," he says, through his teeth.

Gene laughs in his ear. "Finally found your off-switch, then. Funny place to keep it." He bites Sam's earlobe about as gently as he's pushing on that pressure point, but Sam isn't going to give him the pleasure of a scream. Not yet. "Not really your off-switch, though. Just how much do you like this?"

Sam looks at the wall, fixedly, thinking of soldiers in movies, giving their name and service number over and over again. He doesn't have a number to recite, and if he starts telling Gene his rank, he'll say it wrong for all the practice he's had. This is no place to say he's a detective chief inspector, muscles shaking involuntarily with pain. He doesn't have to say anything at all; he's got an excuse in the way the pain's burning away all his damn thoughts.

Until Gene lets up and Sam takes a deep breath in relief, in loss. "Maybe I don't like your on-off-switch so much, not if you're going to pretend it shuts your brain off along with that mouth of yours. Answer the question."

Sam swallows and tries to work out how much of the truth to tell. "I don't mind it."

Gene shoves him over backwards with one sweep of his arm and pins him flat. "You don't mind it. Or you want to mind it, but your cock's got another opinion, there, all awake and wanting more. Keep talking, Gladys."

Someone nicked the phone book out of Sam's flat before he got it, if there ever was one. The phone's far enough away that Gene might not remember it's there. There are shoes, somewhere, and somewhere Gene kicked off his boots. Other than that, there aren't many things even he could use as effective weapons within reach, short of picking up the telly.

Or threatening to turn it on, but he doesn't know that.

So it's not so much like being locked in Lost and Found with his trousers on the wrong side of the door as it could be. It could be worse. All Gene's got to hand are his hands, and those are bad enough. Good enough. Whichever.

Sam shrugs as best he can on his back with Gene leaning over him, glowering at him. "If you kept better records, you wouldn't have to ask the same questions more than once," and that's the wrong argument in the wrong place, but it makes Gene fight to hide a smile.

"I could make a pile of notes on you and your twitches, but if anyone ever read the notes we keep round the station, they'd lock you away even without a detailed run-down of your pervy little turn-ons."

"That would be inconvenient," Sam admits. "Though you might have some fun making the list."

Gene rolls his eyes. "You're mistaking me for you, somehow, which is a trick, as I'm up here and you're down there." He prods Sam's chest, emphasizing his point. "And I'm not putting a finger anywhere near any of the bits you want touched so badly till you answer my damn question."

That sounds like an impasse to Sam, enough of a one that he laughs. "So you're not going to hurt me any more till I explain to you whether I like it, and if so, how much."

"Could be. Or I could run out of damn patience and beat it out of you." Gene delivers the threat as calmly as he normally tells Sam to get a scotch in for him.

"What if I like that kind of thing?" Sam asks, grinning at him. "Then I win either way."

Gene shakes his head and suppresses another smile. "But if I'm putting the boot in, I'll have my own bit of fun, so I won't mind so much if you have one of your sick moments in the middle of it."

"That's past my tolerance, most of the time."

Gene raises his eyebrows. "Most of the time? What happens the rest of the time, you're too drunk to complain about it?"

Sam shakes his head and wills himself not to flush. "Depends where I've got my head, is all."

"Up your own arse, if you like a good kicking. That's nothing to play with." Gene scowls at him, inches away. "You're not going out asking blokes for this kind of shit. I'd have heard about it by now, the weirdy copper as wants a boot in his side."

"God, no." Sam winces at the thought, at what kind of a mess he'd get himself into trying it. He's in enough trouble now faced with Gene, warm and solid over him, nearly as real as anything could be, waiting for a set of real answers. "I'm not stupid."

"Just a pervert. Right." Gene takes a breath and looks him over. "So no kicking, less you've got your head in whatever the right place is for it. What the hell else do you like, then, between a quick buss on the cheek and a punch in the face?"

"Not my face. Usually." Sam licks his lip, thinking of the last time Gene split it. That hadn't been anything to do with sex, as they hadn't started this yet. On the other hand--on the other hand, he doesn't want to encourage Gene in anything that would leave him looking like he needs a self-help leaflet.

"You mostly mind being punched in the face." Gene shakes his head. "You really have some problems, don't you?"

"Not really," Sam says defensively. "I'm in touch with my desires, that's all." It's the modern term for it, or it will be, eventually, if he makes it that long or makes it back. On the other hand, it doesn't surprise him in the least that Gene finds this equal parts fascinating and disturbing.

"Your desire. To get punched in the face." Gene taps his nose with one finger. "That come on you often? Wake up of a morning with a craving, do you? Let me know when it's back again. I know several blokes as would oblige you."

Sam rolls his eyes. "You keep missing the salient point here. I don't want several blokes."

"Every girl's dream," Gene says.

Sam snorts. "That's me out, for a start. And--look." He shifts, but Gene's still atop him and not taking the hint. "Do we have to have this damn conversation with you crushing half the life out of me?"

Gene rolls his hips lazily, rubbing his erection against Sam's stomach. "You want to get up, talk faster. You're damn good at that when you put your mind to it."

"I don't want every man I pass on the street. Or anything like it. Or every bird, or even--" Sam shakes his head "--even the ones who I might like, under other bloody circumstances where I wasn't stuck here."

"Our good Manchester birds don't measure up to the stock you get in Hyde, then." Gene raises his chin, somehow managing to look offended on behalf of the women of his city no matter how many times he's made every effort to offend them. Or how offended he'd be if Sam had one of them coming round, just now.

There aren't many ways to put what Sam is trying to express without coming over entirely ridiculous, not to mention more than a little Dorothy--and the fact that he can think that phrase shows that he should be breaking this whole thing off right now before he picks up any worse habits than he already has. "It's not the birds, Guv."

Gene sniffs. "Weedy lot in Hyde. Poncey. So far up themselves you'd have to get a ladder to find them, I always thought."

Sam bites his tongue hard against all the implied insults. "I've never met a bloke there like you," he says, and Gene snorts.

And prods him, not gently, not in any of the various places he could take it without gasping, but on one of the myriad bruises on his chest, relic of some punch-up a few days before. There had been an excuse at the time, Sam's sure of that, though he can't remember what it was. Something procedural, probably, and if he needed any more danger signals than that, he'd be gone by now.

He's good at ignoring danger signals even when he recognizes that that's exactly what they are.

Gene looks more amused than offended, so that's something. "If they had folk like me in Hyde, why would anybody leave it?"

"I don't know," Sam says, and that's far from the only thing he doesn't know in this situation, but he's not going into that now. "Thing is--"

He knew what the end of the sentence was when he started it, but by the time he says the first two words, the rest is gone, victim of another prod that's got his arm aching and his cock throbbing for some kind of attention, now.

"Thing is what?" Gene asks, doing a reasonable impression of someone who was interrupted halfway through receiving a blowjob and wants to get back to that as soon as possible while also gathering as much information as he can on the best ways to torture Sam in the future.

Sam shrugs. "I don't know. Something. If you want me to explain things, how about trying a hands-off method?"

"Softly softly?" Gene sucks his teeth and reaches down, wraps his hand round Sam's cock. "Doesn't feel softly to me."

"Fuck," Sam says, half a second from making that "Fuck me," and as desperate a thing as he's said for weeks. It's not that it'd be the first time, or that Gene would be surprised, but it's a matter of pride. If he's going to beg, he's going to beg on his own damn terms, not because Gene makes him want to.

That would be an easier position to keep if he didn't already want to, but if he's giving himself away, that's better than being taken.

Gene raises his eyebrows. "So where's your head, Sammy? Up for a kick in the ribs? Broken nose? Or more twiddling of that wicked place on your shoulders?"

Sam takes as deep a breath as he can, piecing it all out. The first two offers are self-evidently too much without a row, and they're not what he wants, not what he needs. On the other hand, the last question's too much for him to answer straight-out, too. He doesn't want to be that easy to read.

There's an out, one he learned a few decades from now, simple and effective when it works--and he trusts Gene enough that it might well work, here. He won't get more than he needs, he's sure of that, and he's not going to give in enough that he'll forget how much that is. "No kicks. No broken noses." Sam swallows. "Nothing I have to explain round the station, not when there's nothing I can say but 'I fell down the stairs.' But other than that--" he smiles at Gene, makes it a dare "--whatever you want."

"Whatever I want." Gene tugs on his hair, not going anywhere with it, an absent sort of dominant gesture in case Sam needed another reminder of where he stands. Lies.

It helps: he focuses on Gene's weight over him in ways he's been ignoring, on the lingering pains, on the ways he's going to have to limber up in his head and maybe his joints, whatever Gene wants next. It won't be easy, he's sure of that. No long walks by the canal, no roses, no cuddling. And whatever happens, he's asked for it, and he'll do his damnedest to take it.

There is a small part of Sam's mind that thinks he belongs here, fighting the good fight every day for the city whether anyone appreciates him or not. It's the same part that's Gene's partner on more than one level, trying to get him to be an effective copper in ways that'll last past the year, past the end of the decade. The same part that always pushes--because Sam can't live without pushing to make things better--and the same part that won't give in unless Sam shouts at it.

He's shouting now, in his head at least, and he finds he sounds a great deal like Gene when he does it: "Sit down, shut up, and do as you're told, and we'll all get through this in one piece, Tyler."

Gene runs his thumb over Sam's mouth, maybe thinking of hitting him, maybe thinking of kissing him--Sam's not focused on him enough to tell the difference. "Maybe you get your jollies like this, talking till all hours of the night about your kinks without doing a damn thing, but I'm not you."

"I know," Sam says.

"So don't expect a long chat." Gene pats his cheek. "We were getting on well enough to start with before you startled on me."

Sam grins at him. "You're going to keep telling me what a quiet bastard you are all night, are you?"

Gene rolls his eyes and kisses him, wrapping one hand round his shoulder near but not quite on any of the pressure points he was using earlier. "I've had enough out of you, telling me what you want." He moves to one side, mostly off Sam, rolling onto his side. "Shut it, Sammy. Or find something better to do with that mouth of yours."

The only answer Sam can come up with to that is, "Yes, Guv," and he doesn't know he's going to say it till it's said.

Gene laughs once, incredulous, then pats his cheek again. "That's the spirit."

It is, though Sam takes a moment to work out why. He's not planning to generalize from this to real work, or any of the other times or places when he would be inclined to call Gene that instead of his name, but it's still right, especially paired with a good firm shove down the bed. Subtlety isn't Gene's strong point, but if Sam needed that, they wouldn't be here, and no one would be poking desultorily at his shoulders, looking for the place that makes him groan in pain.

"A little to the right--fuck--" Sam goes with the next push to get away from the intensity of the feeling as much as anything, though he asked for it and he knows he'll ask again if he needs to.

"Committed any crimes recently?" Gene asks, sounding as though he's had too much to drink, or as though he's about to laugh. There isn't usually much of a difference there.

Sam thinks about it, but he can't remember whether consensual sodomy is technically illegal anymore. He's almost certain it's not, or there'd be more convictions on the books. On the other hand, he had his hand down Gene's trousers in the car a few weeks ago, and that's public lewdness, if nothing else. "One or two," he says, to be on the safe side, and gets his mouth on Gene's cock.

The next prod doesn't make his arm numb, but it makes his muscles twitch. By the end of this, either Gene's going to be a fully qualified shiatsu practitioner, or he'll be able to moonlight as the male version of a dominatrix. Whatever that is. Sam's not coming up with the words, not while he's aching and attempting to give a reasonably passable blowjob.

"I'll make you confess later," Gene says magnanimously. "When you're done there."

Sam snorts and strokes him with one hand, using his tongue until Gene gives him another poke--maybe it's meant to be a punishment, but it works out to encouragement like this, and Sam moves his hand away, tells his gag reflex who's boss, and proves it.

"Jesus, Gladys--" Gene's not gentle--and isn't that the most damn-fool thing Sam's had in his head in days--he's pushing, thrusting, and there's another point Sam hadn't told him about, arcing out a trail of pain clear down to Sam's fingertips.

Sam goes with it, with the stupid name he can barely hear without grinning anymore, with the insistent thrust of his hips. He doesn't have to say anything to give his consent like this, only stop fighting, or stop fighting Gene and fight himself for once. Stay down, stay where he's been pushed and pulled and put, and he can do that. He can take this, though he's choking with the strain of it and he'd be shoving Gene's hands away at any other time. Now, it's right. This is what he needs to be doing, what he needs to be feeling, lightheaded and shuddering with pain and a little oxygen deprivation along the way.

Gene won't last much longer--not when he's making that noise, groaning and sucking in ragged breaths, not when he's jerking like that, Sam knows that tell as well as he knows his own limits by now--and it makes him press harder, hold Sam on-down-in. Desperate, perfect strength--and he's saying something, last vestige of some kind of courtesy that Gene sometimes follows through on, but not today, and if he's in the mood to let go just in time it won't matter. Sam's in the mood to hold himself in place, whatever the hell happens.

He's not hearing a "No," there, so this is what's right, still, trying his damnedest to swallow as Gene comes, choking a little--do you choke in dreams, really choke? Do you choke on your own insanity? No, damn it, this is real, or real enough, right here, salt and jerking and Gene's pushing harder now, pushing him off, away.

"Fuck," Gene says, and for once it sounds more like a compliment than anything else. "C'mere."

Sam's still fighting to catch his breath, but that doesn't matter, not when Gene's tugging him up by one overworked, overindulged shoulder. "Sorry, Guv," he says, and that gets him a look like he's wearing his pants on his head.

"What in hell for?" Gene's eyes are glazed, still, his chest sweaty where he leans against Sam--not cuddles him, no, not Gene, not this, not them. "You sucked my brains out, but they'll be back in a minute. I've got extra, you know."

"All right." Sam shrugs. "Then--I don't know."

"Crazy bastard." Gene is quiet for a few breaths, each one smoother than the previous. "You didn't toss yourself off that time."

Sam sighs. Sometimes he would give almost anything to be back in the right time, or with someone kinder and gentler, or maybe someone queerer than Gene will ever admit he could be. He doesn't let himself mind having to look after his own erection, most of the time. That's one of the conditions of the game they don't talk about, along with all of the rules they've never negotiated. "I forgot," he admits, though it's more true to say he was too caught up in everything else he was doing to give a damn about something as simple and easily acquired as an orgasm.

He's achingly hard, still. There was a day when he would've been embarrassed by that, when he would've pretended he wasn't turned on as hell by something as simple as a cock in his mouth and a rush of pain-related endorphins, but there's no point in it here. If he didn't get off on giving head, he wouldn't get off at all half the time. And as for the pain, he's sure that there was a point where he could've claimed it didn't do a thing for him.

Maybe after the first fight he'd had with Gene, when he doesn't consciously remember getting hard but remembers noticing it after, when he was sure they'd both survive it in sufficient form to talk to each other, whether or not they could work together. On the other hand, the plausible deniability point went whizzing out the window well before he adjusted Gene's aim regarding pressure points. Sam knows that, and he can almost believe he could say it in words without consequences. He might, to anyone else.

"How do you forget that?" Gene sighs, a long-suffering sigh Sam knows down to his toes from stake-outs and points of procedure that don't make sense in Gene Hunt's CID, whether or not they do anywhere else that matters. He gives Sam a look that tries to be sad, tries to be disappointed, and comes out more like drunk with a side of mischievous.

"I was distracted," Sam says, though it sounds pathetic.

Gene touches his mouth, rough fingers on his wet, swollen lips. "Don't know that I've ever been that distracted."

Sam gives in to the urge to ask one of the forbidden questions. It's not forbidden in the sense that he's been told not to ask it, but he knows better when he's got blood flow to his brain. "Ever sucked someone off?"

Gene's expression closes down, but only for a moment, not nearly as badly as Sam was expecting. "Not like that, no."

"What do you mean, like that?"

Gene presses his thumb against Sam's bottom lip for a moment, then pulls it away. "It was never half so much fun as you make it look." Between his tone and everything else, all the weeks and months they've gone without a hint that Gene would ever consider doing such a thing for anyone, Sam is more than a little afraid he's stumbled into some painful memory. "That was a long while ago."

Sam swallows, all too aware of the rawness of his throat. "If it's with the wrong person, nothing's as much fun as it is with the right one."

"You should embroider that on a pillow." Gene thumps him on the chest. "And you think you're just the man to redeem the noble practice of cocksucking for me."

He wants to beg, but he knows his place, here, and begging is not even close to allowed. "Not if you don't want to."

Gene shrugs, which is more relaxed than Sam would've thought he'd be. "You make it look like good fun."

Sam bites his lip, which is still oversensitive enough to make that a bad idea, and plays devil's advocate for the hell of it. It won't get him any farther from where he wants to be than he thought he was twenty minutes ago. "I've always hated licorice, but sometimes the ones that aren't quite as licorice as the other ones look tasty enough to try."

"What?" Gene leans back far enough to get a good, if shadowed, look at his face. "You're not trying to tell me your cock tastes like sweets, are you?"

"If it does, there's something wrong." Sam rubs his thumb over the tip and licks it to check. "Nope, tastes just the same as ever."

Gene wrinkles his nose, then takes Sam's wrist in his hand and sucks the pad of his thumb, wet, toothy, and teasing. "Well, at least you're not ill," he says, while Sam's eyes are rolling back in his head with the surge of lust.

It takes a second for Sam to be able to focus on him again. "I hate you," he says, more fondly than he entirely feels at the moment.

Gene shakes his head and pushes himself up onto his knees, looming over Sam in a way that isn't nearly as unpleasant as it should be. "Add that to your cross-stitching, then." He looks Sam over, his mouth set in a crooked line. "Two things."

Sam tries to guess, but there are too many options. "What two things?"

"Three," Gene corrects himself. "Hands off if you want me to keep going, you damn well tell me when you're near finished if you ever want me to think of doing this again, and you either say 'No' to all that or--" he smiles, not a comforting smile, but a familiar one "--or 'Yes, Guv.'"

"Yes, Guv," comes faster than conscious thought as far as Sam can tell. He clenches his hand into a fist before Gene even starts, while he's still shifting down the bed, ignoring the protesting springs. It's not that Sam doesn't trust himself to keep his hands polite, it's that the thought's driving him crazy already and he wants to enjoy ten seconds of this, at least.

The first wet lick is nothing special, or would be nothing special, if it didn't go along with Gene snorting and giving him a wry look from waist level. "It must be all the burn-your-tongue-off curry you eat, makes you forget what you put in your mouth half the time."

Sam gives him a rueful smile and decides it's time for a few truths he wouldn't normally say. Of course, Gene could stop sucking him to call him a sissy, weirdy poof, but even he must have limits. Somewhere. "It's not that. You--nn--you taste good, when you've washed sometime that week."

Gene smacks his thigh, sharp and stinging, and pulls off with a slurp. "Don't hold your breath for me to say the same."

"Oh--no. Of course not." Sam fights the urge to beg for all of five seconds. "Done already?"

"No." Gene gives him a level look. "Are you done taunting me about my personal habits, despite the fact that half the times I've washed myself in the last month you've been staring at me all the while?"

Sam digs his fingernails into his palm and braces himself for another difficult truth. "I was trying to see if you'd--" he can't say it.

Fortunately, Gene's listening properly for once. "If I'd raise a hand to you."

Sam can't look at him and say it, but it has to be said. "Yes, Guv."

"Right." Gene pats his thigh. "Is that nutter-speak for 'Take me over your lap and spank me,' or should I wiggle my fingers till I find one of those places that makes you scream, other than your arse?"

Sam chokes. "I'd much rather you kept on what you were doing than spanked me." He tries to think of applicable pressure points, but there aren't many coming to mind. "Never mind about the other stuff. Just--" he waves a hand "--keep on. It's fine." The only warning he gets is that Gene's eyes narrow for a second before he takes Sam's hand and twists his wrist in on itself. It hurts like hell, it'll keep his hand well out of the way, and it's going to make him cry if it goes on very long. Sam says, "Shit--that's--"

"Better?" Gene asks, and that's an impossible question.

Or, it would be impossible if Sam had to think right now, but he knows the answer without thinking. "Yes, Guv." And, after a breath, he can add, "Please--"

"Please what?" and if Sam didn't know better, he'd think Gene was hard again from the burr in his voice.

"Keep going."

He has no idea how long it lasts, how long he lasts between the slick friction--he's missed that, missed the texture of a tongue and the occasional maybe-a-mistake scrape of a tooth--and the consistent, constant ache, spreading up his arm until he'd say he can't take it, but he is, and it's making everything better. Sam's floating, feeling everything from the texture of the sheet under his free hand to the intermittent rasp of Gene's stubble on his thigh as if it's being tattooed on his brain, making every last second the most important thing he's ever felt.

Sam doesn't know what he says during it except "Please" and "More," doesn't know what he's doing except holding himself still as he can but for the occasional thrust up, and that gets him another agonizing squeeze, and he stops himself, goes back to being as passive as he humanly can but somewhere he's moaning, "Jesus, Guv, yes--"

Until Gene gives him a squeeze and speeds up, sucks harder--maybe for the first time, or maybe it's been an hour and he wants to get the whole thing over with.

"Oh, fuck, no," Sam says, and it all comes crashing to a halt, the pressure in his hand goes away, Gene lets him go--wrong words, danger words, never going to say that again, too late.

Gene's voice is all business. "What is it?"

Sam groans and beats his head on the pillow. "You said to warn you. You didn't say you'd--"

"Idiot." Gene throws himself down next to Sam with too much force, any harder and the bed would break, and puts his hand round Sam's abandoned erection, jerks him with no finesse. "Can't even manage 'I'm coming,' you're that far gone. What in hell do queers do in bed in Hyde?"

Sam thrusts into his hand, letting himself move in all the ways he wasn't allowed to before. "Don't know. Don't care."

Gene kisses him, deep and long, tasting exactly like a man who'd bought Sam a round earlier, who'd mocked and eaten his cooking with equal pleasure, and who'd--wonder of wonders--had his mouth on Sam's cock, thirty seconds ago. He bites Sam's tongue, never sweet, never careful enough. Sam comes, all the tension and desire he hasn't been able to own up to arcing through him like an electric shock and making him shake with it until he can't see, feel, or think, until all that's left of him is what Gene's holding onto.

"Hi," he says, when he comes back to himself enough to make a word.

"You are a ruddy mess," Gene says, his face an inch away from Sam's.

"Yeah?" Sam grins. Some other time he'll worry that Gene might mean more than the part where if he falls asleep right now, he'll regret it come morning. Some other time. "It'll wash."

Gene laughs once. "Next time you're after me for not bathing, I'll recall you said that."

"'course you will." Sam shivers, then realizes the blankets on the bed are somewhere off the end, along with the top sheet. And that he really is a mess, so if he's thinking of blankets, thinking of washing would be smart. He does have to sit up to get them, though, and that seems a great deal of work. "Are you staying?"

It's a moment before Gene asks, "Are you tossing me out?"

Sam wants to hug him right then, but between the increasingly obvious need for a cleanup and Gene's general aversion to admitting he likes physical affection, it seems like too much. "No. Stay if you like. I'll be back in a minute." He hands Gene a box of tissues and goes into the bathroom.

He looks the same as ever in the broken mirror, except that he keeps catching himself smiling. By the time he's tidy enough for bed, Gene has fallen asleep, as far over to one side as it's possible to be on a bed the size of Sam's. The only way to share it is by pressing right up against the other person and hoping he holds on tight enough so no one falls off.

Sam gets in as best he can, thinking of the first night, when he'd tried to leave Gene space and woken up spooned to within an inch of his life. "Good night, Guv," he says softly.

Gene puts an arm round him and pulls him in, not quite awake as far as Sam can tell, but awake enough to get a good grip on him. He'll not be going anywhere for a few hours at least. "Sleep. Now."

It's a while before Sam falls asleep between Gene's snoring and the urge to stay awake and work out what kind of a conversation they'll have to have about all the games they're playing, if it ever comes to a conversation. Once he decides that whatever Gene has to say about Sam's little ways, they'll be balanced out by the things Sam has to say about his, he can trust that he's safe enough to sleep.


End file.
